It's no wonder that when Red River came out with their Palo Duro Etching paper a few months ago that they immediately reached out to me to get my thoughts on it. I printed with it and liked it right away, but I've been so crazy busy I haven't found time to write about it. Lucky for you and some insomnia after the baby waking me up in the middle of the night means that you'll finally get to hear my thoughts on this hearty fine art paper.

No Epson Comparison

While I've got a lot of Epson papers, for this review I only had 13x19 and 5x7 versions of this Red River paper. I have no other 5x7 papers to compare against and I can't scan 13x19 sheets, so this review will simply judge it on its own merit.

I will say that the closest thing I've used to this paper is the Hahnemühle German Etching, but that is still a very different paper that has no equal that I've seen (yet). I reference that paper because it's one that has a heavy texture, and that is something this paper definitely has - loads of visible texture. If that is something that bothers you, then stop reading as this isn't the right paper for you. However, if you can look at a canvas print and ignore the texture then read on.

Color Quality

Matte black ink on fine art matte papers are always going to have a smaller color gamut than photo black on resin coated papers, but the color gamut of the Red River ICC color profile for the Epson SureColor P600 completely consumes that of the excellent Epson Cold Press Natural as shown in the graph above. What this means is that you'll get better color across the entire color spectrum using Red River's profile with this paper than you will with Epson's.

It should be noted that my scanner couldn't pick up the full range of grayscale so I had to scan it twice to get the gray squares and the grayscale gradient is better in real life than what's shown in the photo. Simply put, the scan doesn't do it justice compared to what you'll see in real life.

In The Hand

At 21mil and 315gsm, this is no flimsy paper! It's got a hearty chalky feel with a noticeable texture. It doesn't flex easily and Red River recommends using the fine art media tray, but I was able to run it through the Auto sheet feeder on my P600 without any problem, so it's not unbearably thick!

Photo Quality

The following are unedited s of actual 5x7 prints made using my P600 (my dedicated matte black printer). In the first photo, this is Epson's Advanced Black & White mode of a color photo:

It was a little darker than I hoped so some of the details were muddy in the vest, but it looks better in real life than in the scan. Here's the color print which is remarkably close in tone to what I get using photo black and luster paper:

Naturally the best type of image for this type of paper is going to be a images with lots of texture, so I've printed my famous Treehouse photo using both the P600 (above) and the Canon PRO-1000 (below) using ICC profiles provided by Epson and I was quite pleased with the real world results.

The wider gamut of the Canon comes through in the form of warmer tones and deeper blacks. In real life under a light box in ideal lighting conditions, the Canon really shines but in normal tungsten lighting conditions the Epson print doesn't feel as dark so it is easier to see some of the detail in the shadows. Simply put, both look good but if you have great lighting conditions then the Canon will produce the more visually pleasing print.

For Epson SureColor printers, the driver will be basically the same so here's the settings I chose:

I did Cold Press Natural so I could use the sheet feeder, despite Red River's recommendation for using Velvet because 5x7 paper can't be used for the manual feeder (required for Velvet).

No matter what paper you use, you have to set Paper Thickness to 5 in Paper Config(uration):

In all of my testing, I had no issues with the paper being scratched - even when I forgot the paper thickness set to 2. You'll also noticed below that I did LEVEL 4 (1440x1440 dpi) per Red River's guidance. 1440 does variable size dots vs 2880 which uses fixed size, so the lower resolution can still result in higher quality results which was my observation with this paper. As a result, I agree with Red River's recommendations:

In Photoshop I chose to do Perceptual rendering intent (despite my normal preference for Relative Colormetric) for the best results:

Mac settings look different, but the values are all the same so what you see here - despite looking very different - still applies to the Mac.

For the Cano - PRO-1000 I chose Heavyweight Fine Art Paper so I could use the Rear Tray (for the same reason as above for Epson - you have to do this with 5x7 paper). I also chose the highest quality which with the optional XPS (non-default for Canon) driver can result in better color fidelity:

On this page the key thing to remember is to click Advanced Settings and Color Intensity to Manual (then click Set):

For color you want None so Photoshop can apply the ICC profile without double color management:

For Advanced Settings you have to set Print Head Height to "Avoid Paper Abrasion" which just means this is thick paper:

Conclusion

This paper feels substantial in the hand with a hearty texture so some will perceive that as high quality and others will be think ugh, that's too chalky for me. However, that's the art of choosing the right paper for the right photo. When paired with a texture heavy image like the treehouse shot, it's a great choice that feels good in the hand.

This paper has the fine art "special" feel that separates it from your cheapo prints, so even a novice will know that this wasn't printed at your local discount warehouse or volume online print service. When commanding a premium price for your images, this is important so that's where paper like this really pays for itself!

Red River has done a good job of offering a museum quality paper at a reasonable price with excellent ICC profiles. As a result, this paper is an easy one to recommend to both Canon and Epson fine art printer users.